


Ten Blocks Away

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [21]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Break Up, M/M, Moving Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-06 20:38:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14655750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: Sam threw himself at a threadbare chair. “Seriously,” he panted. “So much fucking stuff. I mean, if I were a shitty friend, I might even say you’ve got baggage, Barnes. Living proof, all this.”Bucky ducked into the tiny kitchen, fished two bottles of water from the fridge, and threw one straight at Sam’s head. “If,” he said. “Yeah. Right.”





	Ten Blocks Away

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: I have back-up everything. Back-up hair-dyer, back-up knife, back-up cellphone, back-up bullshit to tell the cops… Prompt from this [generator](http://colormayfade.tumblr.com/generator).

“Remind me never to help you move again,” Sam wheezed, taking the last two steps at a stagger. “Why the fuck do you have so much stuff?”

Bucky leaned on the doorframe and set his load down, dug around for his keys. “I think the better question is why are you so out of shape? What are you doing at the gym every day--playin’ hopscotch?”

“No,” Sam said, “I’m drinking too much Gatorade and flirting with Karen at the front desk. Duh.”

“Yeah, well”--Bucky twisted the key and gave the ancient door a good shove--“now you know it’s your other muscles that need actual attention, blockhead.” He scooped up the box at his feet and together, they stumbled into the rabbit warren of boxes and semi-legit furniture they’d spent the morning hauling up five flights of stairs. 

Sam threw himself at a threadbare chair. “Seriously,” he panted. “So much fucking stuff. I mean, if I were a shitty friend, I might even say you’ve got baggage, Barnes. Living proof, all this.”

Bucky ducked into the tiny kitchen, fished two bottles of water from the fridge, and threw one straight at Sam’s head. “If,” he said. “Yeah. Right.”

“You gonna call Rogers and tell him you, ah, you got here ok?”

“Sam, I moved ten blocks away, not to Nebraska. I think he’ll assume that I’m fine. He’s out of town, anyway, until next week.”

His friend squinted at him in the afternoon sunlight. “He does know you moved out, right? You didn’t make me part of some clandestine break-up raid, did you? Please tell me you did not do that to me.”

Bucky waved a hand. “No, no. He knows. It worked out good, though. Him not being around. It, ah”--his voice trailed off and he took a big swallow to hide the lump in his throat.

“Woulda been harder to leave if he was standing there watching you pack,” Sam finished.

“Yeah. Something like that."

“Probably would’ve been easier for you two to make it work if he weren’t gone all the time, though. Kinda ironic. The one time his travel schedule actually works in your favor is when you guys break up.”

Bucky turned away and ran a hand over his face. “Yeah. Ironic.”

They’d been together a decade--grown up together, practically--and there was part of him that refused to believe it was really all over, kaput. Yeah, he’d been the one to throw in the towel, technically, the one who’d started their last, epic fight where stuff long swallowed, words long bitten back finally punched their way to the surface. It wasn’t like Bucky was innocent here; the crappy state of things wasn’t only Steve’s fault. Bucky had withdrawn into himself, he could see that now, had pulled back from even trying to reach out to Steve, to tell him how he felt. And they’d once been so goddamn good at that; hell, there was a time not too long ago, when Steve had first started flying here there and everywhere for Stark Inc., when they couldn’t shut up about feelings and love and words like  _ commitment _ .

Was that only two years ago? Bucky thought. Jesus.

Two years ago, he’d asked Sam to be his best man. Two years ago, Steve’d bought him a stunner of a ring he was almost embarrassed to wear and made reservations for Bali, of all places, Bali, a full week on the beach away from his iPhone, his laptop, from Mr. Stark’s every whim. Two years ago, the world had seemed as if it was blooming and for the first time in his life, Bucky had turned his eyes towards the future and kinda liked what he saw.


End file.
